EDMONTON -- Edmontonians who were in Nashville Monday night say a high from an Oilers victory over the Predators ended quickly when a series of deadly tornadoes tore through Tennessee.

Jamie O'Connell, her husband, and a pair of friends left the Bridgestone Arena for Nashville's Broadway district after the 8-3 victory, deciding at midnight to get some food.  

The wind began to pick up as they were walking, eventually growing strong enough to toss debris around the streets. Then, air raid sirens began to sound.

"It is not a sound you want to hear because it means danger is imminent," O'Connell recalled, adding the alarms triggered a panic attack.

"I lived through the 1987 tornado and I didn't think I had that much trauma around it, and I was just freaked out," she said, referring to the "Black Friday" twister in Alberta that killed 27.

She commented twice how quickly the situation turned disastrous. Earlier in the night, O'Connell and her friends had checked the forecast to see if they needed to bring jackets to the game.

"There was possibly a chance of rain after the game – and there wasn't rain, there was a tornado."

O'Connell's group took shelter in a nearby hotel, waiting out the storm as it struck Nashville's downtown core.

A single twister smashed through more than three dozen buildings in a 16-kilometre stretch in the city's centre. Another tornado travelled further than three kilometres in Putnam County, wiping entire homes from their foundations.

At last count, officials said 22 people died in the storms Monday night.

"It is devastating," O'Connell said.

"Our hearts go out to everyone in Nashville and we just hope that they can get through this."

TORNADO NEARLY MISSES KISSEL'S NASHVILLE HOME

Canadian country music star Brett Kissel is among those whose neighbourhood was left in a wreck Monday night.

Kissel, who is from Flat Lake, Alta., was at a honky-tonk post-Oilers game when the air raid sirens started.

"They were so loud and so close that we could hear it over the music,” Kissel said in an interview.

“And we thought: that's a little odd.”

Like O'Connell, Kissel said there was little warning as to the danger that was about to follow.

He became concerned when an emergency warning popped up on his phone saying it was not a drill and to take cover. The notification mentioned the tornado had touched down in the trendy Germantown neighbourhood, where Kissel lives.

His condo was nearly missed. Other homes in the area did not fare so well.

“Trees everywhere. There were overturned vehicles on the highway. There was a big semi on the interstate right by our place that was almost completely upside down.”

The twister got so close to Kissel's condo that cars in the parking lot had smashed windows. His unit had no power, but was otherwise fine.

On the way to the airport to fly to Alberta on Tuesday, Kissel said he passed overturned cars and billboards snapped in half.

“What this twister did to Nashville and did to everything in its path is unlike anything me or my wife has ever seen.”

With files from CTV News Edmonton's Jeremy Thompson, The Canadian Press and The Associated Press